Does Gwyneth Paltrow eat jade eggs for breakfast?

This weekend, my partner and I were invited to my friend’s house for dinner on Friday night, and his friend’s house for a Shabbat lunch. We had also agreed to meet another set of friends for dinner on Saturday. This left us with responsibility for just a single meal: Saturday breakfast. Typically, my “go to” breakfast is cereal. Nothing illustrates the onward march of time quite as much as my evolving tastes in breakfast cereals: A childhood of enforced bowls of Cheerios, followed by my embrace of autonomy once I could purchase unlimited boxes of edgy Captain Crunch, flings with granola and oatmeal, and now a steady diet of Fiber One (except I can only get Fibre One, which makes me feel like a traitor with every bite).

However, when I feel motivated, or like I need ammunition in my quest to get my kids to put me into a good nursing home, I will occasionally make the most of my (admittedly limited) culinary skills and offer pancakes. On Saturday morning, I noted that it might be nice to put more effort than usual into our morning repast, and asked if we had everything we needed to make pancakes. My partner responded by saying that he didn’t have a clue how to make them.

I was a little surprised by this, given he had been living in his own apartments for almost 20 years, in a variety of configurations: roommates, partners, and alone. He had even shown himself to be capable of making basic dishes, if not, perhaps, terribly talented at it (sorry, babe). Pancakes are level one recipes, included in most of the recipe books for children under the category “Get Your Own Damn Breakfast!” So, how could he not understand how to make them? I choose to interpret this as a problem of ratios.

“So, pancakes are easy. You take a cup of flour, a package of baking powder, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a cup of milk, an egg…”

He gasped. “But you hate eggs!”

This is when I started believing that he didn’t know anything about pancakes, since I only mind eggs in a form that still resembles an egg product, like scrambled eggs or omelettes. I asked him how he thought pancakes were made. He said that you take goop and put it in a pan.

“Goop?”

And he goes… “Yah. You know. Like Gwyneth Paltrow.”

Those words should have been a warning to drop the matter. But I was curious about why my brilliant partner (I gotta earn back some points after the dig about his cooking) would be discussing a flaky actress. He went into more detail.

“Gwyneth Paltrow has a brand called Goop that sells these jade eggs women put into their vaginas.”

And with that, I went straight to the interwebs. I was shocked to find that he was right. Apparently, there were women willing to spend a great deal of money to put crystals in their “yonis” for the purposes of clearing their chi and cultivating sexual energy. Possible bacterial colonization was a mere side benefit. My favorite part? The helpful Q & A on the website about the product, with questions like… Can the egg get stuck or lost?

Yes, ladies. When you stick things in your vagina, there is a tiny wormhole that opens up and they are sucked away to become Orbs on Bajor. Seriously though, if you do not understand the inner workings of your anatomy to this extent, please speak to a gynecologist before relying on advice from an actress.

I asked my partner why he knew more about women sticking crystals in their lady parts than about making pancakes. He blamed the internet. And I had to admit, even if only to myself (and of course to you, Dear Reader), that I spend a lot more of my time researching dumb crap online than on learning things that would help improve humanity. At that moment, I vowed to use the internet for good and not evil, and started making a list of all the knowledge that I could gain if I spent my time more appropriately. And my resolve held right up until five minutes later, when my partner asked if I thought a jade egg would fit in an ovipositor (don’t look this up!!).

And this is why humanity is doomed.